(yare' ) that
has been translated with the word fear. It is sometimes translated with reverence,
sometimes with serve sometimes with terror (Harris, 1980: 399 ff). In
various genres of the Old Testaments the expression has different nuances or shades of
meaning (Schultz, 1996:192)
True fear of God almost defies definition, because it is really a
synonym for the heartfelt worship of God for Who and what He is.
What we have to realise very well, is that the phrase fear of God
does not mean that we must be afraid of God, or that a Christian should have
anxiety or terror for Him.
It is true that the Bible uses the expression "the fear of
God" in two different ways. Sometimes it does mean "terror, even a
"horror" of God. This is the fear of the unpardoned sinner who live in a deep
antagonism against God (e.g., Genesis. 3:10). It is the kind of terror that a slave has
for his master, because his master acts like a tyrant. In the parable of the talents this
terror is the attitude that the servant with the one talent had towards his master. He
said: `Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and
gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your
talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' (Mathew. 25:25).
You see, this is the kind of fear some people have for God, but at the
same time they also carry hate for Him deep in their hearts, just as a slave would towards
a cruel master. He serves his master, but only out of fear of punishment. If his master
should die, it would be a relief to him. When people with this kind of fear of God think
of Him, they have a picture of a cruel tyrant in their minds. Therefore they serve Him
with the absolute minimum and actually against their will.
The true fear of God is a child-like fear. Some of the puritans
used to call it a filial fear. It is a combination of holy respect and glowing
love. It is at the same time (1) a consciousness of being in the presence of true
Greatness and Majesty; (2) a thrilling sense of privilege, (3) an overflow of respect and
admiration; and perhaps supremely, (4) a sense that His opinion about my life is the only
thing that really matters. To someone who fears God, His fatherly approval means
everything, and the loss of it is the greatest of all grieves. To fear God is to have a
heart that is sensitive to both His God-ness and His graciousness. It means to experience
great awe and a deep joy simultaneously when you begin to understand who God really is
and what He has done for us.
Therefore the true fear of God is not a fear that makes you run away
and flee from God, it is a fear that drives you to God.
Love for God and fear of Him are, therefore, not at all incompatible.
To think that they are is to fail to see the richness of the character of the God we have
come to know. It is to ignore the way in which knowing Him in all of His attributes, and
responding appropriately to Him, stretches our emotional capacities to their limit.
Scripture portrays the fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord as companion emotions.
F. W. Faber (cf. Ferguson, 1985:20) saw this clearly when he wrote:
They love Thee little, if at all,
Who do not fear Thee much:
If love is Thine attraction, Lord,
Fear is Thy very touch.
We see this same combination of fear and love the
Afrikaans Psalm 119: 44 :
As ek dink aan U gestrengheid, (When I think of your strictness)
Dan meng liefde en vrees deureen; (Then love and fear blend in
me)
also Psalm 119:60
Tot U loop ek, op U hoop ek, (To you I walk, on you I hope)
op U wette gee ek ag; (To your laws I give attention)
en ek hou wat U getuig het (and I keep what you have testified)
vol van liefde en stil ontsag... (full of love and still
awe)
It is a feeling of deep awe and respect about his magnitude. It gives
the child of God a deep inner peace and calm. It lets him cry out in amazement: "O
LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above
the heavens".
This kind of spiritual experience makes you kneel down before God in
amazement and adoration and with deep thankfulness for his indescribable mercy. It brings
you to cry out in utter amazement: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on
us, that we should be called children of God!"(1 John 3:1)
Have you ever experienced the fear of God like this? Have you known
occasions when His Word arrested you with such force that you realised that He knows even
the intentions of your heart (Hebrews 4:12)?
Have you sometimes sensed His majesty in the mighty swell of the ocean,
or as you stare on a clear night to the myriads of stars above, or watched the lightning
dash across the sky and heard the peals of distant thunder? Did you not experience a
thrilling sense of awe before His glorious power? Have you sometimes meditated on the
Cross and found yourself saying,
Amazing Love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me!
This is the fear of God. It is awe, admiration, wonder, and love, all
experienced simultaneously in the presence of His glorious majesty. If you know and
experience this child-like fear of God it will have influence on every aspect of your
life.
Let us look at the impact this kind of spirituality has on your life in
general and then specifically on our zeal for and methods in missions
THE EFFECTS OF THE FEAR OF GOD IN THE LIFE OF A CHILD OF GOD
The true fear of God influences your whole life, all aspects of it. The
most obvious impact of the fear of the Lord is that it produces holiness in our lives. It
provides the spirit in which we are to work out our salvation into the whole of our lives
(Phillipians. 2.12) and to purify ourselves as we grow in holiness (2 Cor 7:1).
The Bible abounds in illustrations of the sanctified lifestyle this
produces:
1. It holds us back from continuing in sin. Look at Exodus 20:20.
After God has given the law to his people Moses said to them: God has come to test you,
so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.
Maybe you can recall the well-known history of Joseph when the wife of
Potiphar tried to seduce him. She blatantly invited him to come and sleep with her but he
resisted. How did he do it' The answer shows clearly in his words: How could I do such
a wicked thing and sin against God? (Genesis 39:9). His fear of God kept him from
sinning.
Why do we experience such blatant unfaithfulness. immorality,
perversity and even homosexuality these days? The main reason is that the fear of God has
almost disappeared. According to the Bible the fear of God is the foundation for genuine
morality.
Dear parents, is it your wish that your lads should live a clean,
unblemished life? Teach them, from early childhood truly to fear God.
Let your life be an example of the true fear of God.
- Child-like fear of God makes you a person of integrity
, somebody who can be trusted.
Nehemiah was such a person. The governors of his time all reigned
through bribery and corruption. In Nehemiah 5:15 he says that the earlier governors --
those preceding him -- placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of
silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the
people. But out of reverence for God he did not act like that.
If we shared this sense of awareness that we live "before the face
of God" (as the biblical phrase puts it), a new honesty would mark our speech and
make us stand out in the world.
3. Child-like fear of God promotes obedience to God's commands in our
lives.
When Noah received the order to build an ark he was obedient. Despite
the scorn of the people of his time he built the ark on dry ground. In Hebrews 11:7 we
read that Noah in holy fear built an ark to save his family.
4. Fear of God drives away your fear of people and what they possibly
could do to you.
Jesus said that we should not fear those that can only kill the body,
but that we should fear Him who can destroy body and soul in hell.
Many Christians are afraid to show that they are followers of Christ.
Here is the answer to our own lack of courage in witness!
Remember, Christ also said; "But if anyone publicly denies me, I
will openly deny him before my Father in heaven". (Matthew 10:33).
The great reformers in history were all people who acted with undaunted
bravery. For example, friend and foe said of John Knox that he feared no man because he
feared God. That is one of the reasons why the whole Scotland decreed a change of religion
only one year after Knox started to work full time in Scotland. Of his preaching it was
said: "Others lop off branches, but this man strikes at the root."
The impact of a child like fear of God in missions.
The true fear of God provides a vision and a zeal for missions.
Look how clearly it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:11, where Paul is
explaining what was it that made him such a zealous missionary. He says: Since, then,
we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
For him involvement in missions was not a kind of a special hobby as
some Christians and churches view it today.
Somebody who knows the true fear of God, who trembles at his greatness,
who is filled with deep joy and thankfulness because he may be child of God, will realise,
as Paul writes in Romans 1:14,15 that we are obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks,
to bring the Word to them with a vision to reap a harvest among them.
Such a person also knows that we grieve God our Father if we neglect
this duty.
The true fear of God gives boldness as well as gentleness in witnessing
It is amazing that the Bible combines our task to witness with this
fear of God. This filial fear is an absolute precondition in our spiritual lives in order
to have boldness on the one hand and gentleness in the same time. Look at 1 Peter 3:15
… but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready
always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in
you, yet with meekness and fear:
In witnessing you usually find one of these problems. People are too
timid to really speak boldly about the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ in their own
hearts. On the other hand you sometimes get witnesses who are so bold that they are rude
and are actually witnessing more about themselves than about Jesus Christ. In Cape town a
man was witnessing in an open air meeting on the parade. After he has been speaking for
half an hour about his horrible sinful past and spilling out all the details of his sinful
life, another coloured man interrupted him with a question asking: "I say Gammat, are
dyou witnessing or are dyou bragging?"
The true fear of God amongst the people of God, also has an impact on
the unbelievers
Those who fear the Lord, who have been gripped, awed, stunned by this
knowledge will -of course - want to employ all their energies and gifts to bring others to
trust such a gracious Saviour. This is what happened in the early church: it was
strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in
the fear of the Lord" (Acts 9:31), emphasis added). That early Christian
fellowship marked by the fear of the Lord did not diminish in size-it was joined by
others!
This applies not only to individuals, but also to congregations as a
whole in their daily lives as well as in their worship together.
Look at 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 where Paul says that there should be
such a consciousness of God's presence, when Christians are worshipping that an unbeliever
who might be there, will be touched to Such an extent that he "will fall down on his
knees and worship God, declaring that God is really there among them".
This quest for transcendence is a challenge to the quality of the
church's public worship. Does it offer what people are craving – the element of
mystery, the 'sense of the numinous', in biblical language 'the fear of God', in modern
language 'transcendence'? My answer to my own question is 'Not often'. The church is not
always conspicuous for the profound reality of its worship. We seem to have little
awareness of the greatness and the glory of the almighty God. We do not bow down before
him in awe and wonder. Out tendency in worship services is sometimes to be cocky, flippant
and proud. We take little trouble to prepare our worship services (Stott, 1992:227).
Sometimes they are slovenly, mechanical, perfunctory and dull. At other
times they are frivolous to the point of irreverence. No wonder those seeking reality
often pass us by!
If we want to be missionary churches we need to listen carefully to the
biblical criticism of religion. No book, not even by Marx and his followers, is more
scathing of empty religion than the Bible. The prophets of the Old Testament were
outspoken in the denunciation of the formalism and hypocrisy of Israelite worship. Jesus
then applied their critique to the Pharisees of his day: "These people ... honor me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Mt 15:8). And this indictment of
religion by the Old Testament prophets and by Jesus is uncomfortably applicable to us and
our churches today. Too much of our worship is ritual without reality, form without power,
fun without the fear of God, ultimately religion without God.
That is why we also read in Acts 19:17 that the name of the Lord was
greatly honoured after a solemn fear had descended on the city.
Tell me, do you think that an unbeliever who meets us, deals with us
and observes our lives as Christians will be forced to kneel and call out that "God
Is really here among you!"
God centeredness in the work
Sometimes churches and even missionaries are involved in missions
without doing it in the true fear of God. Then their whole approach becomes man centred
and not God centred. They want to gather numbers as fast as possible to flatter their own
ego or even to impress their mission board. They want to plant as many as possible
churches as fast as possible, without really making sure that those who profess to have
become followers of Christ, have truly committed themselves to Christ as their only hope
in life and death and their one and only Saviour and Lord.
Sometimes missionaries may fear their sending organisation more than
they fear God. In order to proof to their mission organisation that their work is
worthwhile, they are quick to accept people as full members of the church without having
seen clear evidences of true repentance and faith. Without realising it missionaries and
mission organisations sometimes want to exhibit their converts as trophies to their
supporters. They may publish all kinds of sentimental articles in mission magazines with
the photos of their successes.
This kind of approach has led to a vast problem in Africa. There are
large congregations full of baptised pagans. Many churches are extremely weak with
unfaithful Christians who still walk with one leg in paganism and cling to pagan beliefs
like the veneration of ancestral spirits and consultation of witch doctors (isangomas and
inyangas). In this regard some missionaries have a greater fear of losing numbers than
they have a genuine fear of God. Therefore they even concoct a kind of
"Contextualised Theology of Missions" that allows for the accommodation of raw
paganism within the Christian Church (Kgatla, S.T. 1997:634-646; For a good summary of
Reformed views on Contextualization, see Conn, 1990:52-66)
No self-supporting churches without the fear of God
There are many churches in Africa that have been established more than
20 years ago, with fairly large congregations, but they are still unable to support their
own pastors. There are even churches which after several decades of existence, still
appeal to mission boards overseas for new missionary pastors when a retiring pastor is
forced to leave the work because of the infirmities of old age. Churches that keep on
following such a procedure are far from the New Testament pattern.
In some places the sponsoring mission organisation passed through a
financial crisis and was forced to radically cut funds going to the support of pastors. As
a result, pastors failed to find other means of support from their churches and took
secular employment. Abandoned chapels and scattered congregations were the result.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that there was something
fundamentally wrong in the life of those churches. Surely God does not intend for the
church in any country to continue to be so dependent upon a sponsoring foreign mission,
that when its help is removed the young church becomes sick and dies (Allen,1956:5-30
gives many biblical arguments to prove this point.)
In the New Testament we see a completely reversed pattern. There we
read of young churches that supported older churches financially. Paul says that he was
almost feeling embarrassed by the willingness of the church in Macedonia to bring
financial sacrifices to help the poor in the mother church in Jerusalem.
For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond
their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege
of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave
themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. (2
Corinthians 8:5)
They first gave themselves to the Lord! That is precisely
the first place where many missionaries and evangelists and church workers go wrong.
Because they do not walk in the fear of the Lord, they do not really lead the outsiders to
first give themselves to the Lord. They allow new people as members of the
church without real evidence of having started to walk in the true fear of God! People who
have not been lead to a filial fear of God will not be willing to sacrifice themselves in
order to seek first the kingdom of God (Hesselgrave, 1980:56 stresses the need for real
conversion in church planting very strongly).
Missionaries not Christ centred enough
When a missionary does not really do his work in the fear of
God, he often trains the converts to depend on himself and not to become themselves
responsible to Christ. It may sometimes be because missionaries have an overprotectiveness
for the new converts; other times it may be that missionaries unconsciously desire to be
the head and have people look to them as the indispensable man; it may even stem from a
lack of faith in the Holy Spirit to do His work in maturing the converts.
There is a great danger that we as missionaries are not Christ centred
but focused on our own honour and glory or the honour and glory of our denomination or our
mission board.
For whatever reason, the fact remains that weak churches are often the
product of the missionaries who do not really walk in the fear of the Lord and therefore
have a wrong approach to their task. How we long to see vigorous converts who will walk in
the fear of God and therefore testify fearlessly to their neighbours and really accept
responsibility for all the matters of the young church. How much the spirit of dedication
and sacrifice is needed in order that true indigenous Christian leadership will develop!
There is one "pearl of great price" in building the church,
and that is a sense of responsibility on the part of the new converts (Hodges, 1976: 17).
With such a sense of responsibility the church will prosper. Without it - although we try
to strengthen the church with a thousand other reinforcements, in the end it will
surrender to the spirit of the world around. Only Cod can produce this sense of
responsibility in the hearts and minds of the members of the young church but the way in
which a missionary approaches his work will open or close doors for the indigenous people
to become responsible or hinder them in their growth in becoming really responsible
children of God, who are walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
The origin of man centred Theology and Missions
Why is it that the fear of God is not at the heart of true Christian
living even in the hearts of missionaries? It really lies in people’s ideas about
God. We have made God small and man great. Throughout the last two centuries our Western
world has been intoxicated more and more with the notion that "man is the measure of
all things". Thus any god still believed in, has been a pagan god, made by man in his
own image, to suit his taste. No wonder the sense of awe has gone from our spirits. This
subtle secularism has infiltrated many Western universities and seminaries where
missionaries are trained.
Martin Luther once put his finger on the issue when he told the great
humanist scholar Erasmus, "Your God is too man-like." Only when we share
Luther's other great cry, "Let God be God," is God feared, because only when He
is seen as the Glorious One are our hearts hushed in reverence before Him. If we do not
fear God today it is not because (as we sometimes mistakenly assume) we have been set free
from "Old Testament religion," but because we do not really know Him as God. For
to know Him as God is to fear him, to be "stunned," as A.W. Tozer puts it, by
the splendour of His presence (as quoted by Ferguson, 1985:10).
The 16th century Reformers and the Puritans following them
have discovered that in the glory of God - from which we instinctively shrink - there is
also an attraction, a fascination, and a beauty. Indeed, the true, biblical fear of the
Lord - what our forefathers called "filial fear" as opposed to legal or servile
fear- exists only when we have been overwhelmed by the holy grace of the Father of light.
HOW DOES ONE ACHIEVE A FILIAL FEAR OF GOD?
When you realise the greatness and majesty of God, when a respectful
awe settles in your soul, then you really start to fear God.
After God had revealed something of his predominant majesty to Job, and
had asked:
Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his?
(Job 40:9)
Job replied;
… I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be
thwarted….
… My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes… (Job
42:2, 5,6)
You see, a realisation of our insignificance before God Almighty lets
us bow before God with awe and true fear.
But this realisation is not enough to let true fear of God grow. The
main thing needed for growth in filial fear of God, is the realisation of all God's mercy
for a lost sinner.
Psalm. 130:4; "But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be
feared". What does this mean? It means that an understanding of God's mercy and
loving kindness lets the true fear of God grow in our hearts. The realisation that the
great Almighty God, who should condemn me about all my sins, has forgiven me, has sent his
Son to save me, has adopted me and made me his heir. This realisation brings us to a true
fear of God. As John Newton says in his song
"Amazing Grace";
"‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved."
We mistake Newton's meaning if we understand him to say that grace
removes the fear of the Lord. No, It is fears that grace removes by teaching us the fear
of the Lord!
It is brought about by a realisation of God's love .
The Holy Spirit produces the true fear of God in our hearts. He does it
by having the Gospel preached to us. Where Jesus Christ is preached faithfully, God has
allowed us to look into his heart; a heart filled with so much love for a lost, condemned
world, that He sent his only Son, whom He loved dearly, to rescue sinners. Oh, you who
fear God, bow before Him and confess:
But with you o God, there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. (Ps 130:5)
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